Providing for Consideration of the Senate Amendment to H.R. Emergency Supplemental Appropriations for Humanitarian Assistance and Security At the Southern Border Act, 2019

Floor Speech

BREAK IN TRANSCRIPT

Mr. McGOVERN. Madam Speaker, by direction of the Committee on Rules, I call up House Resolution 466 and ask for its immediate consideration.

The Clerk read the resolution, as follows: H. Res. 466

Resolved, That upon adoption of this resolution it shall be in order to take from the Speaker's table the bill (H.R. 3401) making emergency supplemental appropriations for the fiscal year ending September 30, 2019, and for other purposes, with the Senate amendment thereto, and to consider in the House, without intervention of any point of order, a motion offered by the chair of the Committee on Appropriations or her designee that the House concur in the Senate amendment with an amendment consisting of the text of Rules Committee Print 116-21. The Senate amendment and the motion shall be considered as read. The motion shall be debatable for one hour equally divided and controlled by the chair and ranking minority member of the Committee on Appropriations. The previous question shall be considered as ordered on the motion to its adoption without intervening motion. Point of Order

BREAK IN TRANSCRIPT

Mr. McGOVERN. Madam Speaker, I claim time in opposition to the point of order.

BREAK IN TRANSCRIPT

Mr. McGOVERN. Madam Speaker, I yield myself such time as I may consume.

Madam Speaker, what we are trying to do here is bring a bill to the floor to help alleviate the suffering of children who, in my opinion, have been abused under U.S. custody at our border. Everybody has read the news articles and everybody has seen the pictures. We have a moral obligation to move forward. To try to delay consideration of a bill to help these children I think is a mistake.

BREAK IN TRANSCRIPT

Mr. McGOVERN. Madam Speaker, I yield myself such time as I may consume.

Madam Speaker, I am surprised that my colleagues on the Republican side hold this institution in such low esteem. We are the House of Representatives. Our voice matters.

On this issue, the House voted first on a measure to try to help provide some assistance to these children at the border. Then the Senate passed a different version. The way it is supposed to work is we have a negotiation and we try to come to agreement and come up with a compromise bill. So the idea that somehow we don't matter in the House, that we shouldn't matter in the House, that we should just accept whatever the Senate does, to me, I find that disrespectful of the House of Representatives.

What we are doing is we are sending the Senate basically all that they want, plus we are adding things to help protect children and to provide for more transparency. We are strengthening requirements for children's health. We are tightening restrictions for children's safety. We are supporting nonprofits in communities caring for children's well-being. I mean, we are embracing compassionate processing for children's comfort. Again, we are enhancing accountability in transparency and mandating fiscal responsibility.

Who can possibly be opposed to those things? That is what we are trying to do. We are trying to insist that the House's voice matters, and we are trying to make the Senate bill even better.

Again, what motivates us here is the well-being of these children. We are here because we are for the children. We are here because we are outraged at the way they have been mistreated by this administration. We are tired of excuses as to why we can't protect the children. We are moving forward with legislation that will protect the children against any abuse at our border.

BREAK IN TRANSCRIPT

Mr. McGOVERN. Madam Speaker, I am a little confused. My Republican friends say they want to delay things to have a CBO score, then they say they want to get something to the President's desk right away. They can talk all they want about a CBO score; we are going to talk about the children.

It is an emergency, and what is happening to these children on the border is unconscionable. It should weigh heavily on the hearts of every single person in this Chamber--Democrats and Republicans, alike.

Enough is enough. We need to make sure that we not only provide the necessary resources to alleviate this crisis, but we need to make sure that those resources we provide are provided in such a way that they do go to the purposes that we want them to go to.

And as far as the Department of Defense money, I mean, the bottom line is this administration has been diverting funds from the Department of Defense for this stupid wall, and they have created that crisis.

The bottom line is we are here for the children, and, again, I urge my colleagues to stop the bickering and get down to business. Let us pass this rule; let us go on to pass the legislation; and let us get a deal with the Senate that is better than what is on the table right now.

BREAK IN TRANSCRIPT

Mr. McGOVERN. Madam Speaker, I am really puzzled here. Why is it that the Senate can say no, but the House can't say no to something? Why is it that we always have to do what the Senate wants?

If the gentleman is so enamored with the Senate, maybe he should work over in the Senate.

But the bottom line is, those of us in the House deserve to have our voices heard, and what we are saying here is that we want to provide a bill that will alleviate this crisis, that will help the children.

BREAK IN TRANSCRIPT

Mr. McGOVERN. I will not yield. I do not have enough time to yield.

BREAK IN TRANSCRIPT

Mr. McGOVERN. Madam Speaker, I would like us to make sure we provide resources to the border that actually alleviate the crisis.

I do not want to be part of an effort to send money to the border to be diverted for whatever this President wants. He has shown us where he is on this issue of the children and on the issue of immigration. And, quite frankly, many of us on this side of the aisle--and, I think, some on the other side of the aisle--are offended by that.

So we want to make sure, when we say we are providing relief to this crisis that is affecting so many children, that, in fact, we are providing relief to those children. And that is all we are saying here.

Madam Speaker, strengthening requirements for children's health, why would anybody in the Senate want to be opposed to that?

Tightening restrictions for children's safety, people are dying in our custody. We should want to prevent that from ever occurring again by supporting nonprofits and community caring for children's well- being.

Madam Speaker, this stuff is something that should not be controversial no matter how you look at it, and yet it is for my Republican friends, and I regret that very much.

BREAK IN TRANSCRIPT

Mr. McGOVERN. Madam Speaker, let me remind my colleagues, this is not the House bill that passed. This is a compromise that we have moved forward.

And, again, here is what my friends are saying is partisan: that we put into this bill that for children's health we must ensure a higher standard for medical care, nutrition, and hygiene. That is what they are calling partisan. That is what they are saying, oh, it is awful, we can't move forward on that.

The bill we are putting forward, this compromise bill, will meet the needs of the children. That is all that it does. So I don't know why we in the House can't, in a bipartisan way, stand together and say: Look, we want to improve on what the Senate did, and we want to guarantee that the moneys we send actually go to help the children and not get diverted to other things like we know this administration has a habit of doing.

Madam Speaker, anybody who has seen the pictures in the newspapers recently, anybody who has read the news articles, again, our hearts should ache.

This is not America. This is not what our country is about. We can do much, much better, and that is why we should move forward with consideration.

BREAK IN TRANSCRIPT

Mr. McGOVERN. Madam Speaker, I yield myself such time as I may consume.

Madam Speaker, my colleagues have seen the pictures and they have heard the stories. And if that is not convincing to them to move forward, to increase protections for children who are held in our custody, then I don't know what else to say.

What we are asking for here in this compromise bill that we are moving forward is to make sure that there are stronger protections in here, to make sure that the abuse that we have all read about and that we have all seen stops and never, ever happens again. That is what this is all about.

So I am at a loss because, to me, the evidence is overwhelming that we need to provide stronger protections for these children. If my colleagues disagree, then they can vote against the bill and against consideration, but I would urge all of my colleagues to vote ``yes'' so that we can move forward with this rule in consideration of this bill and get this passed as soon as possible and get on to either urging the Senate to pass it or to continue in negotiation, but we can do better than the Senate bill.

Madam Speaker, I yield back the balance of my time.

BREAK IN TRANSCRIPT

Mr. McGOVERN. Mr. Speaker, for the purpose of debate only, I yield the customary 30 minutes to the gentleman from Oklahoma (Mr. Cole), the ranking member of the Rules Committee, pending which I yield myself such time as I may consume. During consideration of this resolution, all time yielded is for the purpose of debate only. General Leave
BREAK IN TRANSCRIPT

Mr. McGOVERN. Mr. Speaker, today the Rules Committee met and reported a rule, House Resolution 466, providing for consideration of the Senate amendment to H.R. 3401. One hour of general debate has been provided, controlled by the chair and ranking minority member of the Committee on Appropriations.

Mr. Speaker, I think, by now, we all have seen the horrific images showing the bodies of Oscar Alberto Martinez Ramirez and his nearly 2- year-old daughter, Valeria. They were taken on Monday as these Salvadoran migrants tried to cross the Rio Grande after leaving a Mexican migrant camp. Like so many others, they were exercising their legal right to seek asylum here in the United States. They wanted to be free from the violence, gangs, poverty, and inequality that is rampant in El Salvador, just as it is all across Central America.

I visited El Salvador and I visited Honduras recently, and, Mr. Speaker, I saw the unbearable conditions with my own eyes. It is no wonder that organizations like the United Nations Office on Drugs and Crime have said this and other Central American countries are more dangerous than Afghanistan and only slightly better than Syria.

Syria, Mr. Speaker, is the site of an ongoing civil war. Let that sink in for a moment.

But, unfortunately, Alberto and Valeria didn't survive their journey. Alberto's wife, Tania, was forced to watch in horror as a current washed her family away.

I am telling their story today because this is what migrants face as they risk their lives to come to this country--not to transport drugs, not to commit crimes, as the President suggests, but to find refuge, to raise their daughter in a safe place, and to have a chance at building a better life, a life that they could only find in America.

Isn't this what each of us wants for our own families?

They came to present themselves at a legal port of entry and to seek legal asylum, as is their right under U.S. law.

And they weren't the only ones to die. Just this past weekend, Border Patrol agents found four more bodies in the river west of Brownsville, Texas: three more young children and a young woman in her twenties.

Every single week, people drown in the river and perish in the deserts, invisible and unknown.

It wasn't too long ago that we celebrated how immigration made our country stronger, whether it was a Democratic or a Republican administration.

I am reminded of President Reagan's final speech in office, where he said:

Anybody, from any corner of the world, can come to America to live and become an American. This, I believe, is one of the most important sources of America's greatness.

But, Mr. Speaker, the Trump administration apparently has the complete opposite view of immigration. They don't celebrate it; they demonize it.

Consider what may have happened to Oscar and his family if they did make it to our border, forced to sleep on concrete floors with the lights on 24 hours a day, with no soap, no medicine, maybe not even a toothbrush, Valeria separated from her parents, because that is what migrants are forced to endure at border facilities under this President.

A physician who visited one recently said: ``The conditions within which they are held could be compared to torture facilities.''

Mr. Speaker, when Lady Liberty encourages us to give her our poor, huddled masses, I don't think she means so the administration can turn around and throw them in a cage. I don't think she lifts her torch so their legal plight could be criminalized and crying children could be ripped from the arms of their parents.

But that is what is happening under this President, and, Mr. Speaker, it is sickening. It should tear at the hearts of every single Member of this House, whether they are Democrats or Republicans.

This week, the House passed bipartisan emergency legislation to address this humanitarian crisis at the border. The Senate had its own ideas. So, today, we are back with a compromise to get a bill quickly signed into law.

This is a compromise that lives up to our core values and protects children and families. It adds critical protections for children who were included in the House version of the bill. It includes language to improve care for children by forcing influx facilities to comply with the Flores settlement and capping, at 90 days, the amount of time a child can spend in such a facility.

We are also reducing funding for ICE, while rejecting additional and unnecessary dollars for the Pentagon.

This is a crisis, Mr. Speaker. We cannot treat compromise as though it is a dirty word, not when migrants are literally losing their lives in unsafe, unhealthy, and unsanitary conditions and children are being torn apart from their families. That is what is at stake here.

The horrors at detention centers shouldn't get lost in the latest tweet-a-thon by the President, just as the plight of migrants shouldn't go unseen by the American people. This should shake our conscience and make clear the urgent need to act.

Mr. Speaker, I urge my colleagues to support this rule and the underlying bill, and let's send a message to the President and to the world that America is better than this. This is not who we are, what is happening at our border.

Mr. Speaker, I would just say one final thing. In the compromise package today that seems to bother so many people are merely items that would protect the well-being of these children, that would provide more transparency. For the life of me, I don't understand the controversy. I don't understand why we can't make the Senate bill better, why we can't do more for these children.

I know my colleagues on the other side of the aisle feel as we do, that what is happening is unacceptable. Let us strengthen that bill. Let us actually give a bill to the President that we all know will help these children.

BREAK IN TRANSCRIPT

Mr. McGOVERN. Madam Speaker, I do not yield for that purpose. All time yielded is for the purpose of debate only.

BREAK IN TRANSCRIPT

Mr. McGOVERN. Madam Speaker, I yield myself such time as I may consume.

I want to assure the distinguished minority leader that I am not asking Members of Congress to vote for what we are bringing before the House today based on their party. I am asking Members to vote their conscience.

And to be totally frank, we want to make sure there are protections built in this legislation so that funds are not misused as they have been in the past; so we don't see any more children being abused; so we don't see the mismanagement that we have witnessed.

With all due respect to the Senate majority leader, and to many of my friends on the other side of the aisle, when children were being ripped apart from their parents, we heard silence. When we read about the terrible conditions that these children were in, being denied soap, and toothpaste, and toothbrushes, and not being cared for, we heard silence.

When we saw the picture of Oscar and Valeria dead, trying to seek asylum in this country, there is nothing.

So the bottom line is, we want to get this done, and we will stay here as long as it takes, I assure the minority leader. We are not going anywhere.

But we are going to stand for the children, and that is what our purpose is here today.

Madam Speaker, I yield 2 minutes to the gentlewoman from Pennsylvania (Ms. Scanlon), a distinguished member of the Rules Committee.

BREAK IN TRANSCRIPT

Mr. McGOVERN. I yield the gentlewoman from Pennsylvania an additional 30 seconds.

BREAK IN TRANSCRIPT

Mr. McGOVERN. Madam Speaker, I include in the Record two articles, one from The New York Times entitled: `` `There is a Stench': Soiled Clothes and No Baths for Migrant Children at a Texas Center''; the other, `` `The Taliban Gave Me Toothpaste': Former Captives Contrast U.S. Treatment of Child Migrants.'' [From the New York Times, June 21, 2019] `There Is a Stench': Soiled Clothes and No Baths for Migrant Chidren at a Texas Center (By Caitlin Dickerson)

A chaotic scene of sickness and filth is unfolding in an overcrowded border station in Clint, Tex., where hundreds of young people who have recently crossed the border are being held, according to lawyers who visited the facility this week. Some of the children have been there for nearly a month.

Children as young as 7 and 8, many of them wearing clothes caked with snot and tears, are caring for infants they've just met, the lawyers said. Toddlers without diapers are relieving themselves in their pants. Teenage mothers are wearing clothes stained with breast milk.

Most of the young detainees have not been able to shower or wash their clothes since they arrived at the facility, those who visited said. They have no access to toothbrushes, toothpaste or soap.

[Hundreds of migrant children have now been transferred out of the facility.]

``There is a stench,'' said Elora Mukherjee, director of the Immigrants' Rights Clinic at Columbia Law School, one of the lawyers who visited the facility. ``The overwhelming majority of children have not bathed since they crossed the border.''

Conditions at Customs and Border Protection facilities along the border have been an issue of increasing concern as officials warn that the recent large influx of migrant families has driven many of the facilities well past their capacities. The border station in Clint is only one of those with problems.

In May, the inspector general for the Department of Homeland Security warned of ``dangerous overcrowding'' among adult migrants housed at the border processing center in El Paso, with up to 900 migrants being held at a facility designed for 125. In some cases, cells designed for 35 people were holding 155 people.

``Border Patrol agents told us some of the detainees had been held in standing-room-only conditions for days or weeks,'' the inspector general's office said in its report, which noted that some detainees were observed standing on toilets in the cells ``to make room and gain breathing space, thus limiting access to the toilets.''

Gov. Greg Abbott of Texas on Friday announced the deployment of 1,000 new National Guard troops to the border to help respond to the continuing new arrivals, which the governor said have amounted to more than 45,000 people from 52 countries over the past three weeks.

``The crisis at our southern border is unlike anything we've witnessed before and has put an enormous strain on the existing resources we have in place,'' Mr. Abbott said, adding, ``Congress is a group of reprobates for not addressing the crisis on our border.''

The number of border crossings appears to have slowed in recent weeks, possibly as a result of a crackdown by the Mexican government under pressure from President Trump, but the numbers remain high compared to recent years. The overcrowding crisis has been unfolding invisibly, with journalists and lawyers offered little access to fenced-off border facilities.

The reports of unsafe and unsanitary conditions at Clint and elsewhere came days after government lawyers in court argued that they should not have to provide soap or toothbrushes to children under the legal settlement that gave Ms. Mukherjee and her colleagues access to the facility in Clint. The result of a lawsuit that was first settled in 1997, the settlement set the standards for the detention, treatment and release of migrant minors taken into federal immigration custody.

Ms. Mukherjee is part of a team of lawyers who has for years under the settlement been allowed to inspect government facilities where migrant children are detained. She and her colleagues traveled to Clint this week after learning that border officials had begun detaining minors who had recently crossed the border there.

She said the conditions in Clint were the worst she had seen in any facility in her 12-year career. ``So many children are sick, they have the flu, and they're not being properly treated,'' she said. The Associated Press, which first reported on conditions at the facility earlier this week, found that it was housing three infants, all with teen mothers, along with a 1-year-old, two 2-year-olds and a 3- year-old. It said there were dozens more children under the age of 12.

Ms. Mukherjee said children were being overseen by guards for Customs and Border Protection, which declined to comment for this story. She and her colleagues observed the guards wearing full uniforms--including weapons--as well as face masks to protect themselves from the unsanitary conditions.

Together, the group of six lawyers met with 60 children in Clint this week who ranged from 5 months to 17 years old. The infants were either children of minor parents, who were also detained, or had been separated from adult family members with whom they had crossed the border. The separated children were now alone, being cared for by other young detainees.

``The children are locked in their cells and cages nearly all day long,'' Ms. Mukherjee said. ``A few of the kids said they had some opportunities to go outside and play, but they said they can't bring themselves to play because they are trying to stay alive in there.''

When the lawyers arrived, federal officials said that more than 350 children were detained at the facility. The officials did not disclose the facility's capacity but said the population had exceeded it. By the time the lawyers left on Wednesday night, border officials told them that about 200 of the children had been transferred elsewhere but did not say where they had been sent.

``That's what's keeping me up at night,'' Ms. Mukherjee said.

Some sick children were being quarantined in the facility. The lawyers were allowed to speak to the children by phone, but their requests to meet with them in person and observe the conditions they were being held in were denied.

The children told the lawyers they were given the same meals every day--instant oats for breakfast, instant noodles for lunch, a frozen burrito for dinner, along with a few cookies and juice packets--which many said was not enough. ``Nearly every child I spoke with said that they were hungry,'' Ms. Mukherjee said.

Another group of lawyers conducting inspections under the same federal court settlement said they discovered similar conditions earlier this month at six other facilities in Texas. At the Border Patrol's Central Processing Center in McAllen, Tex.--often known as ``Ursula''--the lawyers encountered a 17-year-old mother from Guatemala who couldn't stand because of complications from an emergency C-section, and who was caring for a sick and dirty premature baby.

``When we encountered the baby and her mom, the baby was filthy. They wouldn't give her any water to wash her. And I took a Kleenex and I washed around her neck black dirt,'' said Hope Frye, who was leading the group, adding, ``Not a little stuff--dirt.''

After government lawyers argued in the Ninth Circuit Court of Appeals in San Francisco this week that amenities such as soap and toothbrushes should not be mandated under the legal settlement originally agreed to between the government and migrant families in 1997 and amended several times since then, all three judges voiced dismay.

Among the guidelines set under the legal settlement are that facilities for children must be ``safe and sanitary.''

The Justice Department's lawyer, Sarah Fabian, argued that the settlement agreement did not specify the need to supply hygienic items and that, therefore, the government did not need to do so.

``Are you arguing seriously that you do not read the agreement as requiring you to do anything other than what I just described: cold all night long, lights on all night long, sleeping on concrete and you've got an aluminum foil blanket?'' Judge William Fletcher asked Ms. Fabian. ``I find that inconceivable that the government would say that is safe and sanitary.'' ____ `The Taliban Gave me Toothpaste': Former Captives Contrast U.S. Treatment of Child Migrants (By Deanna Paul) [June 25, 2019]

The federal government told a panel of Ninth Circuit appellate judges last week that U.S. border detention facilities are ``safe and sanitary,'' as required by law, even though migrant children are denied soap, toothbrushes and dark places to sleep.

Judge William A. Fletcher called the position of Sarah Fabian, a senior attorney from the Office of Immigration Litigation, ``inconceivable.''

Senior U.S. Circuit Judge A. Wallace Tashima told the government attorney, ``If you don't have a toothbrush, if you don't have soap, if you don't have a blanket, it's not safe and sanitary.''

Fabian's argument spread rapidly across the Internet--and so did several tweets supporting the notion that the United States treats migrant detainees less humanely than foreign pirates and the Taliban treat their captives.

American journalist Michael Scott Moore, abducted in 2012 while reporting in Somalia, watched Fabian argue that minimal necessities, like toiletries and sleeping conditions, were not essential to meet minimum ``safe and sanitary'' standards.

``That was--let's say--below my experience in Somalia,'' he told The Washington Post Tuesday of his more than two years in captivity.

``The conditions were about as miserable as you could imagine,'' he said, describing a barren and concrete prison house. Often there was no electricity, he said, ``but we had certain minimum things that kept it from being completely wretched.''

He said he was given toothpaste, soap, a daily shower and a foam mattress.

Recent reports have surfaced describing U.S. border detainees held in cages of chain-link fencing, sleeping on concrete and covered with blankets made of aluminum foil, allegations that Customs and Border Protection officials dispute.

On Tuesday, the agency said that children in custody receive ``continuous access to hygiene products and adequate food'' while awaiting shelter placement.

Somali pirates gave me toothpaste & soap. https:// twitter.com/nowthisnews/status/1142151178177978368 . . .

An executive editor at newyorker.com, David Rohde, contributed to the online conversation, too.

``The Taliban gave me toothpaste & soap,'' he wrote on Twitter, drawing from the seven months he spent as a hostage of the Taliban. Rohde said he was not abused in their custody, though the group is known for abusing its captives.

The online thread with former prisoners has been liked nearly half a million times. Washington Post Global opinions writer Jason Rezaian, who was held in Iranian custody for a year and a half and has an ongoing lawsuit against the Iranian government, also responded on Twitter.

``I felt if I didn't chime in, it would be the height of hypocrisy,'' Rezaian told The Post on Tuesday, calling U.S. treatment of children at the border misaligned with ``what this country stands for.'' ``The government is treating them like they're statistics, `the other' and not deserving of basic humanity.''

From the first day in captivity, Rezaian was permitted to shower regularly. He was also given a toothbrush and toothpaste. Rezaian asked, ``If we're going to treat the most vulnerable people this way, what does that say about our actual values?''

I had a toothbrush and toothpaste--not exactly Aquafresh or Tom's--from the first night. Actually, I had almost nothing else in my cell while I was in solitary confinement. I was allowed to shower every couple of days. https://twitter.com/ yashar/status/1142546005688311808 . . .

The case heard on Tuesday stems from a motion filed under the Obama administration. In part, it argued that Customs and Border Protection was holding children in detention facilities that were not ``safe and sanitary,'' in violation of a 1997 precedent.

The Trump administration, however, opted to bring the appeal, asking the panel of three judges to condone current custody conditions.

BREAK IN TRANSCRIPT

Mr. McGOVERN. Madam Speaker, I yield 2 minutes to the gentlewoman from Texas (Ms. Escobar).

BREAK IN TRANSCRIPT

Mr. McGOVERN. Madam Speaker, I yield myself such time as I may consume. What we just witnessed was really interesting. In the amount of time that it took my friends on the other side of the aisle to get through those antics, we could have passed this bill. That is what urgency looks like. Not political theater. These kids that we are here to try to protect deserve more than grandstanding. They deserve things like medicine. They deserve things like soap and clothing.

And my Republican friends say they don't want to waste time, but they wasted a hell of a lot of time with what we just saw happen.

And just one other observation. In all the other editorial comments that were made, I didn't hear the word ``children'' mentioned once. I mean, it is telling, because that is what this debate is all about. It is not about grandstanding, and it is not about more money for cages to put kids in. It is about the children. And I am sorry that the children who are suffering under U.S. custody are such an afterthought.

And to the gentleman from Michigan, I am outraged, too. I am outraged that the terrible conditions that these kids have been forced to experience happened under U.S. custody. I am outraged that that would happen in the United States of America.

Madam Speaker, I yield 3 minutes to the gentlewoman from Connecticut (Ms. DeLauro), the distinguished chairwoman of the Appropriations Subcommittee on Labor, Health and Human Services, Education, and Related Agencies.

BREAK IN TRANSCRIPT

Mr. McGOVERN. Madam Speaker, I yield the gentlewoman from Connecticut an additional 1 minute.

BREAK IN TRANSCRIPT

Mr. McGOVERN. Madam Speaker, I include in the Record two articles: One from Vox, entitled, ``The Horrifying Conditions Facing Kids in Border Detention, Explained,'' and another from Time magazine, entitled, ``Lawyers Say Migrant Children Are Living in `Traumatic and Dangerous' Conditions at Border Detention Site.'' [From Vox, June 25, 2019]

The Horrifying Conditions Facing Kids in Border Detention, Explained (By Dara Lind)

On any given day, 2,000 children are in Border Patrol custody, and the problems are hardly confined to one facility.

At any given time, for the past several weeks, more than 2,000 children have been held in the custody of US Border Patrol without their parents. Legally, they're not supposed to be held by border agents for more than 72 hours before being sent to the Department of Health and Human Services, which is responsible for finding their nearest relative in the US to house them while their immigration cases are adjudicated.

In practice, they're being held for days, sometimes weeks, in facilities without enough food or toothbrushes--going days without showering, overcrowded and undercared for.

Late last week, the conditions of that detention in one facility in Clint, Texas, became public when investigators, checking on the US government's obligations under the Flores agreement (which governs the care of immigrant children in US custody), were so horrified that they turned into public whistleblowers and spoke to the Associated Press about what they saw.

The stories they told have horrified much of America. The past several days have seen growing outrage, and the acting commissioner of Customs and Border Protection (which oversees CBP) announced his resignation Tuesday (though officials maintain the outrage didn't cause the resignation).

But the problem goes beyond one official--or one facility.

The story gained even wider traction after Rep. Alexandria Ocasio-Cortez's (D-NY) reference to the detention facilities as ``concentration camps,'' and the ensuing debate over whether that term was appropriate.

The US government's response was to move the children out of the Clint facility--and move another group of children in.

On Monday, officials confirmed that all 350 of the children there last week would be moved to other facilities by Tuesday; about 250 of them have been placed with HHS, and the remainder are being sent to other Border Patrol facilities. But on Tuesday morning, a Customs and Border Protection official told a New York Times reporter on a press call that about a hundred children were currently being housed at Clint.

That's illustrative of the hectic improvisation that's characterized much of the Trump administration's response to the current border influx. It's a problem that is much, much bigger than the problems at a single facility. Indeed, the problems investigators identified at Clint are problems elsewhere as well.

The lone member of the team of legal investigators who visited the El Paso facility in which many children were sent from Clint--called ``Border Patrol Station 1''--told Vox that conditions there were just as bad as they were in Clint, with the same problems of insufficient food, no toothbrushes, and aggressive guards.

The problem isn't the Clint facility. The problem is the hastily-cobbled-together system of facilities Customs and Border Protection (the agency which runs Border Patrol) has thrown together in the last several months, as the unprecedented number of families and children coming into the US without papers has overwhelmed a system designed to swiftly deport single adults.

It is apparent that even an administration acting with the best interests of children in mind at every turn would be scrambling right now. But policymakers are split on how much of the current crisis is simply a resource problem--one Congress could help by sending more resources--and how much is deliberate mistreatment or neglect from an administration that doesn't deserve any more money or trust.

Border Patrol isn't prepared to care for children at all. It's now housing 2,000 a day.

According to statistics sent to congressional staff last week and obtained by Vox, between May 14 and June 13, US Border Patrol facilities were housing over 14,000 people a day--and sometimes as many as 18,000. (The most recent tally, as of June 13, was nearly 16,000.)

Most of these were single adults, or parents with children. But consistently, over that month, around 2,000--2,081 as of June 13--were ``unaccompanied alien children,'' or children being held without adult relatives in separate facilities.

In an early June press call, a Customs and Border Protection official said, referring to the total number of people in custody, ``when we have 4,000 in custody, we consider that high. 6,000 is a crisis.''

Traditionally, an ``unaccompanied alien child'' refers to a child who comes to the US without a parent or guardian. Increasingly--as lawyers have been reporting, and as the investigators who interviewed children in detention last week confirmed--children are coming to the US with a relative who is not their parent, and being separated.

Because the law defines an ``unaccompanied'' child as someone without a parent or legal guardian here, border agents don't have the ability to keep a child with a grandparent, aunt or uncle, or even a sibling who's over 18, though advocates have also raised concerns that border agents are separating relatives even when there is evidence of legal guardianship.

Under the terms of US law--and especially the 1997 Flores settlement, which governs the treatment of children in immigration custody--immigration agents are obligated to get unaccompanied children out of immigration detention as quickly as possible, and to keep them in the least restrictive conditions possible while they're there. Barring emergencies, children aren't supposed to be in Border Patrol custody for more than 72 hours before being sent to HHS--which is responsible for finding and vetting a sponsor to house the child (usually their closest relative in the United States).

That hasn't been happening. Attorneys, doctors, and human rights observers have consistently reported that children are being held by Border Patrol for days or longer before being picked up by HHS. And in the meantime, they're being kept in facilities that weren't built to hold even adults for that period of time, or in improvised ``soft-sided'' facilities that look like (and are commonly referred to as) tents.

The detention conditions crisis doesn't just affect children. But conditions for children are under special legal scrutiny.

Since late last year, US immigration agents have been overwhelmed by the number of families coming across the border. The US immigration system, which was built to quickly arrest and deport single Mexican adults crossing into the US to work, doesn't have the capacity to deal with tens of thousands of families (mostly from Central America) who are often seeking asylum in the US.

The length of time migrants are spending in Border Patrol custody (and the conditions there) have attracted some alarm before. In April, pictures of migrants being held outside under a bridge in El Paso, fenced in and sleeping on the ground, attracted outrage and led Border Patrol to stop holding migrants there. And in May, the DHS Office of the Inspector General released an emergency report about dangerous overcrowding of adults in two facilities: with up to 900 people being held in a facility designed to hold 125.

Because of the Flores settlement, lawyers have the opportunity to investigate conditions for children to see if the government is complying--and possibly ask a judge to intervene if it is not. That's what spurred the fact-finding mission that led to last week's stories.

The reports about Clint broke at a time when the Trump administration was already playing defense about its compliance with the Flores settlement. (While the administration is working on a regulation that would supersede the terms of the agreement, that regulation isn't expected to be published in final form until fall, and may well be held up in court.)

In a 9th Circuit Court of Appeals hearing earlier last week about whether the administration needed to allow a court appointee to monitor conditions for children in ICE and CBP custody, Department of Justice lawyer Sarah Fabian told judges that children didn't necessarily need towels or toothbrushes to be in ``safe and sanitary'' conditions--a clip that looked especially bad when the Clint stories came out showing the children were being denied just that.

The court hearing was not specifically about the Clint facility--it wasn't about what investigators found last week at all. And as Ken White explained for the Atlantic, Fabien's cringeworthy ``safe and sanitary'' argument came from the awkward stance the Trump administration has taken in this litigation: In order to challenge the court appointment of a special monitor, they argued that there's a difference between a promise to keep kids in ``safe and sanitary'' conditions (which the government has agreed to for decades) and a guarantee of particular items like toothbrushes.

The court appeared unimpressed. And the stories about Clint and other facilities that have come out in the ensuing days certainly bolstered the case that the Trump administration has either willingly violated its agreement to keep kids safe and healthy, or has been unable to keep it--or a mix of both.

The problem isn't Clint.

The problems that investigators identified at Clint--too many people, not enough food, no toothbrushes--weren't inherent to that facility. They were indications of an overloaded (or neglected) system.

And it's already clear that those problems go beyond Clint.

ABC News obtained testimony from a doctor who visited another facility for children in Texas--the Ursula facility-- and witnessed ``extreme cold temperatures, lights on 24 hours a day, no adequate access to medical care, basic sanitation, water, or adequate food.'' She said the conditions were so bad that they were ``tantamount to intentionally causing the spread of disease.''

The children are now being sent from Clint to a facility that is just as bad, according to Clara Long of Human Rights Watch, who was the only member of last week's investigative team who visited it.

Long told Vox that when she was there, the facility in El Paso known as ``Border Patrol Station 1'' was mostly being used as a transit center where migrants were staying only a few hours before going elsewhere. But she spoke to one family who had been held in a cell there for six days, and who voiced the same concerns that children in the Clint facility did.

The mother of the family, Long said, was so ashamed of not having clean teeth--the El Paso facility, like Clint, wasn't providing enough toothbrushes--that ``when she was talking to you she would put her hand up in front of her mouth and wouldn't take it down.'' The teenage son said he was afraid of the guards because when he'd gotten up to go to the bathroom in the middle of the night, a guard had shoved him back into his cell and slammed the door on him. For two nights, the family had had to sleep on the cold floor without blankets.

The fundamental question: Why is it taking so long to get kids out of custody--and is it happening on purpose?

Most of the children who were at Clint when the team visited last week--about 250 of the 350--were set to be sent to HHS custody by Tuesday.

Questions remain about what is happening to the other 1,750 or so children who were in Border Patrol detention on Thursday if levels have remained static since mid-June, and why the government was able to place only 250 children over five days with the agency that's supposed to take responsibility for all children within 72 hours.

It's not clear where the bureaucratic breakdown really is-- and whether it's the result of resource constraints or choices about how resources are used.

The Trump administration definitely has made a choice to keep single adults in detention, even if it could release them. Border Patrol chief Carla Provost has told Congress that ``if we lose (the ability to keep and deport) single adults, we lose the border.'' That does raise questions about whether the overcrowding in adult facilities could be avoided.

But it doesn't address the issue of unaccompanied children, who can't simply be released with a notice to appear in immigration court. While children with parents in the US could theoretically be placed with those parents, the government is supposed to vet potential sponsors to make sure it's not placing children with traffickers--but that's the job of HHS, and the vetting doesn't begin until children are released from Border Patrol custody.

Observers and policymakers agree that HHS simply doesn't have the capacity to take migrant kids in. One Democratic Hill staffer compared it to a ``jigsaw puzzle'': Not only are there only so many spaces available to place a child, but the facilities available might not match the child's particular needs. (You can't put an infant in an HHS shelter for teens, for example.) But another Hill staffer told Vox that HHS claims it's never refused a transfer for space reasons, muddying the waters.

Then there's the question of whether CBP is really doing all it can to care for kids in the time they're in CBP's care.

One of the Clint observers told Isaac Chotiner of the New Yorker stories of cruelty from some guards, indicating that they were deliberately punishing children for the sin of coming to the US without papers. But she also said that many guards were sympathetic, and told the observers that children shouldn't be in their custody--implying that they were doing the best they could and simply didn't have the resources to do more. (Advocates also say they've tried to donate supplies to Border Patrol facilities but had their donations rejected; it's not clear if this was a Border Patrol decision, or if there's a legal complication banning outside donations.)

Congress is considering a package right now to give the Trump administration billions more dollars to deal with migrants coming into the US. To Democratic leadership, including the appropriators led by Rep. Lucille Roybal-Allard (D-CA), who drafted the House version of the supplemental package, the solution to poor conditions in custody is to provide more money specifically to improve those conditions. They emphasize that the bulk of the funding will go to HHS to increase capacity for migrant kids and that funding for ICE and CBP will be strictly limited to humanitarian use.

But to some progressives, led in Congress by Alexandria Ocasio-Cortez, giving any money to immigration enforcement agencies right now is an endorsement of the current state of affairs.

The not-one-more-dime camp, in part, is taking a bright- line stance against the detention of children. But in part, they're demonstrating a lack of trust in the administration to adhere to any law or condition. And they assume that any money given to ICE for transit of migrant kids will, in some way or another, encourage ICE to detain more families and arrest more immigrants in the United States.

The ``smart money'' camp, on the other hand, believes firmly that without funds to improve conditions in detention, the conditions will only get worse.

That's especially relevant in the case of kids deemed ``unaccompanied,'' who have to remain in custody until a sponsor is found. The past few days have demonstrated that those children are extremely vulnerable and that much of the American public wants their situation to change. It just may not be clear how. ____ [From Time, June 20, 2019] Lawyers Say Migrant Children Are Living in `Traumatic and Dangerous' Conditions at Border Detention Site (By Ccedar Attanasio, Garance Burke and Martha Mendoza)

Clint, Texas.--In a tiny Texas town about a half-hour drive from El Paso, a nondescript Border Patrol station operated for six years primarily as a hub for agents on patrol, drawing little scrutiny from immigration attorneys who have been loudly advocating against mass U.S. detention camps that can hold more than 2,000 teens at a time.

And so attorneys visiting the Border Patrol station in Clint, Texas, this week said they were shocked to find more than 250 infants, children and teens inside the complex of windowless buildings, trying to care for each other with what they described as inadequate food, water and sanitation. ``This facility wasn't even on our radar before we came down here,'' said law professor Warren Binford, a member of the team that has interviewed 60 detainees in Clint.

Binford's group warned that because Customs and Border Protection facilities are overwhelmed with migrants, they feared similar situations could be unfolding elsewhere.

Attorney Toby Gialluca, who visited teens and their babies last week in a McAllen, Texas, Border Patrol station, said everyone she interviewed was very sick with high fevers, coughing, and wearing soiled clothes crusted with mucus and dirt after their long trip north. Fifteen kids at Clint had the flu, another 10 were quarantined. ``Everyone is sick. Everyone. They're using their clothes to wipe mucus off the children, wipe vomit off the children. Most of the little children are not fully clothed,'' she said.

Migrant teens in McAllen told her they were offered frozen ham sandwiches and rotten food, Gialluca said. In both stations, the children told attorneys that guards instructed girls as young as age 8 to care for the babies and toddlers.

Border Patrol stations are designed to hold people for less than three days, but some children held in Clint and McAllen have been in there for weeks. Legally, migrants under 18 should be moved into Office of Refugee Resettlement care within 72 hours.

But federal officials have said they have hit a breaking point, with too many migrant children and nowhere to put them. That's in part because over the last year, migrant children have been staying longer in federal custody than they had historically, meaning there are fewer shelter beds in the separate Office of Refugee and Resettlement program where kids are sent from the Border Patrol stations.

Unlike privately contracted child detention facilities, Border Patrol stations are federal facilities, exempt from state health and safety standards, according to Texas Department of Health and Human Services spokesman John Reynolds. Child abuse and neglect investigators are not allowed to investigate the stations because they not licensed by the state.

In Clint, Binford described that during interviews with children in a conference room at the facility, ``little kids are so tired they have been falling asleep on chairs and at the conference table.'' An 8-year-old taking care of a very small 4-year-old with matted hair could not convince the younger girl to take a shower, Binford said.

The lawyers inspected the Border Patrol facilities as part of a President Bill Clinton-era legal agreement known as the Flores settlement that governs detention conditions for migrant children and families.

Neha Desai, director of Immigration at the National Center for Youth Law, said Friday that the U.S. government, attorneys involved in the Flores settlement and an independent monitor appointed by the judge overseeing the Flores settlement are in conversation about the situation of children held in McAllen and Clint.

The Clint facility opened in 2013 with little fanfare on a country road not far from the town's water tower, a liquor store and the sandwich shop where Border Patrol agents eat lunch and dinner. The advocate lawyers who negotiated access to the complex said Border Patrol officials knew of their impending visit three weeks in advance.

Customs and Border Protection officials had no immediate comment, but have said for months that the agency is at its breaking point for housing migrants, calling the situation in the El Paso area a humanitarian and security crisis.

In an interview earlier this week with The Associated Press, Customs and Border Protection John Sanders acknowledged that children died after being in the agency's care, and said Border Patrol stations are currently holding 15,000 people--more than three times their maximum capacity of 4,000.

He urged Congress to pass a $4.6 billion emergency funding package includes nearly $3 billion to care for unaccompanied migrant children.

A migrant father, speaking on condition of anonymity because of his immigration status, said he did not know where his daughter was until one of the attorneys visiting Clint this week found his phone number written in permanent marker on a bracelet the girl was wearing. ``She's suffering very much because she's never been alone. She doesn't know these other children,'' her father said.

Republican Congressman Will Hurd, whose district includes Clint, said ``tragic conditions'' playing out on the southern border were pushing government agencies, nonprofits and Texas communities to the limit.

``This latest development just further demonstrates the immediate need to reform asylum laws and provide supplemental funding to address the humanitarian crisis at our border,'' he said.

BREAK IN TRANSCRIPT

Mr. McGOVERN. Madam Speaker, before I yield to our next speaker, I would remind my colleagues that a vote to defeat the previous question really isn't a vote to bring up the Senate bill. It is a vote to give control of the House floor to the Republicans.

They say they would bring up the Senate bill, but there is absolutely no guarantee that they would. They could bring up a bill to fund a wall, for all we know.

Madam Speaker, we are here to find a way to alleviate the suffering of these children at our border and not to play political games. So I would urge my colleagues to make sure that they vote ``yes'' on the previous question.

And, by the way, I just say to my colleague from Oklahoma, a lot of us aren't satisfied with the Senate bill the way it has been drafted because there are protections that we want to see in that bill because, quite frankly, speaking for myself, I don't trust this administration.

I don't trust this administration to do the right thing, an administration that separated--knowingly and deliberately separated-- children from their parents at the border, an administration that tolerated the conditions that have horrified the entire country.

So I want it clear that the moneys that we are appropriating are going to help children, not to continue this insane inhumane policy that has horrified this Nation.

I won't trust this administration to tell me the correct time, at this particular point. So, no, we are not satisfied. We want more protections in here for the children. We want more transparency. The American people, I think, expect that. We should provide them that information.

Madam Speaker, I yield 2 minutes to the gentlewoman from California (Mrs. Torres), the distinguished member of the Rules Committee.

BREAK IN TRANSCRIPT

Mr. McGOVERN. Madam Speaker, I yield the gentlewoman an additional 30 seconds.

BREAK IN TRANSCRIPT

Mr. McGOVERN. Madam Speaker, I would like to remind the gentlewoman that we are members of the Democratic Party, not the Democrat Party, and I would appreciate it if we were characterized correctly.

Madam Speaker, I yield 1 minute to the gentlewoman from Florida (Ms. Mucarsel-Powell).

BREAK IN TRANSCRIPT

Mr. McGOVERN. Madam Speaker, I yield an additional 30 seconds to the gentlewoman from Florida.

BREAK IN TRANSCRIPT

Mr. McGOVERN. Madam Speaker, I yield 1 minute to the gentlewoman from Michigan (Ms. Tlaib).

BREAK IN TRANSCRIPT

Mr. McGOVERN. Madam Speaker, I yield 1 minute to the gentlewoman from Texas (Ms. Jackson Lee).

Ms. JACKSON LEE. Madam Speaker, I thank the gentleman for yielding, and I appreciate the gentleman from Oklahoma, but I am an optimist.

More importantly, I stand here in the name of Mr. Ramirez and his little, baby girl who were found on the shores of the Rio Grande. The question is: How did they wind up there? They wound up there because of this administration's policies that rejected them as they stood on the Brownsville-Matamoros International Bridge.

There was no reason to say the bridge was closed. They had a legal right to claim asylum, fleeing from the horrible violence of El Salvador. Yet, they could not stand there, and so this is their end.

I am supporting this bill because I believe we should not settle for just anything. This bill particularly provides for the requirements that have additional resources for these children so that they don't die, so that they do have toothpaste, that they are clean, that they are living in clean places. It acknowledges that children cannot be held like cattle in one place beyond 90 days, that you must find their family members, and, yes, there are family members.

This is a process that has been the law of the land and the international law for decades. It is an asylum that can be sought so the Nation can address it. It takes no one's place. It does nothing to hurt this Nation.

I support the underlying legislation because, in the name of Mr. Ramirez and his child, we must do what is right.

BREAK IN TRANSCRIPT

Mr. McGOVERN. Madam Speaker, may I inquire how much time is remaining.

BREAK IN TRANSCRIPT

Mr. McGOVERN. Madam Speaker, I yield 1 minute to the gentleman from California (Mr. Cardenas).

BREAK IN TRANSCRIPT

Mr. McGOVERN. Madam Speaker, I yield an additional 30 seconds to the gentleman from California.

BREAK IN TRANSCRIPT

Mr. McGOVERN.

BREAK IN TRANSCRIPT

Mr. McGOVERN. Madam Speaker, I think what is so frustrating to so many of us is that there is controversy around language to guarantee the protection of these children. The reason we think that is important is because this administration has ignored all the warnings.

We have had whistleblowers talk about the abuse at the border and how these children were being mistreated, and they did nothing.

This administration oversaw a policy of literally tearing children away from their parents. As a dad, I can't imagine what that must be like for any of those parents, and yet this administration thought it was fine.

We have a crisis at the border largely as a result of this President's policies. We need to deal with it, and we need to deal with it now. But we want to make sure we are actually dealing with the crisis and not giving him more money to create other crises.

I appreciate what the gentleman from Oklahoma said about the need for us to continue to work together, and while these negotiations are continuing.

Madam Speaker, I withdraw the resolution.

BREAK IN TRANSCRIPT

Source